Never Alone
by the.quiet.composer
Summary: Alone in an infirmary, weakened and exhausted, Tommyrod reflects on his fight with Toriko.


He is never alone.

It's comforting, really, feeling his insects inside of him, some barely stirring and some wriggling under his skin, in his belly, his lungs. He breathes slowly, legs and feelers tickling his throat from the inside as air rushes past the creature there. He smiles, letting out a brief, high-pitched giggle at the memory of the one he had released before collapsing in Ice Hell. The creature whose legs are scraping at the lining of his esophagus isn't nearly that big, unable to develop while he's cooped up in the infirmary, trapped in a bed, connected to more tubes and machines than he's ever seen in one place but…it will grow.

He smiles again—and his lip splits. He's still dehydrated, despite the foul concoction the doctor forces down his throat at every opportunity, despite the saline flowing into his veins from the IV bag dangling somewhere out of sight behind his head. His body is still weak, fragile after giving birth to the Parasite Emperor. He smiles anyway, licking the blood away, tongue probing the sharp edges of his hidden fangs before sliding over his lips. His blood tastes bitter, a cocktail of medicines, and he grimaces.

The wind howls outside the window. He thinks of Ice Hell again, and smiles despite the pain in his lip, despite the bitter taste still in his mouth. He can still remember the taste of Toriko's flesh. He didn't have time to savor it then, focused as he was on the battle, but he can remember the snap as skin and bone and muscle gave way under his fangs, the burst of clean, fresh blood in his mouth. He licks his lips again, undamaged arm flexing slowly—_painfully_—to draw his hand over the sharp curve of his hip bone, fingers trailing downwards.

The stump of his slowly healing arm itches. He ignores it, scratching at his thighs instead, feeling the tug of his IV line in the crook of his elbow, the tension at the place around his upper arm where the blood pressure cuff is. He stares at the ceiling, letting his fangs slide down, extending until he can feel the tips of them against his lips, and imagines what it will be like to fight Toriko again. This time he resolves that he'll use his full strength, his full power, from the very start of the fight.

He remembers the sound of breaking bones, the taste of blood, the feeling of the Heavenly King's fist—stump, if he was being technical—thudding into his belly hard enough to make his world swim into swirls of dark spots for a moment, hard enough that it left the brackish taste of dead insects and bile in his mouth. His hand curls over his cock, finally, at the memory of that pain. It isn't that he enjoys being struck like that, not really…it's the fight itself. The thrill of having prey that _struggles_, that fights back _hard_. He breathes in deeply, feels the thing in his throat stirring impatiently, hears the skittering of legs inside his body and the wind whipping past the window.

He can't move his hand very well, not with his arm aching and tethered to the machines beside his bed by the IV tubing and the blood pressure cuff. He doesn't really have to move that much, though, thinking of Toriko trembling with pain and exhaustion and cold, only half-conscious, just out of his reach behind the vines that that had grown up around the Show Window. He growls at the memory of that _meddling bastard Teppei_—

His monitors begin beeping rapidly, the tone warning, and he lets out a shaky breath as he tries to calm down. He doesn't want to be interrupted now, and he knows that if his vital signs seem too worrisome, the doctor will come to check. He breathes slowly, his thumb running up and down the underside of his cock, his movements light and steady until he feels his heart slow down, his breathing even out, even the restless insects under his skin beginning to calm down.

His gaze remains fixed on the ceiling, but he isn't seeing the rafters shrouded in gloom; in his mind he sees Toriko again. In a warmer climate this time, one where the bishokuya's wounds won't freeze shut before they can bleed, one where he'll be able to see the blood spurt and gush onto the ground when he takes a bite out of his opponent. He laughs again at the thought, gleeful, the sound threatening to fade into a cough as he puts too much strain on his slowly healing lungs. His movements remain slow and measured, but he so hard now that it's almost painful and he can feel what little fluid his body has managed to produce leaking slowly onto his stomach as tension coils tighter and tighter in his lower belly.

His insects may not be able to make a meal of Toriko, not with the substance his body secretes to keep them at bay, but _he_ can; his fangs jut out to their full extent, one of them sliding against the split in his lip, making it deeper. His own tainted blood trickles into his mouth, down his throat, and he can feel the growing excitement of the now only half-dormant parasite there. He hisses again, imagining the broken, bloody body of the Heavenly King laid out before him, helpless; he knows the man won't beg, not in real life, but in his imagination…well. That's a different story.

He imagines little, exhausted whimpers of fright and pain, imagines a terrified voice pleading _no, no please _as he rips into an unprotected belly, tearing into fat and muscle and organs until his fangs scrape Toriko's spine—and really, that's all it takes. He spills his seed—what little of it his body can muster, his orgasm is nearly dry—onto his belly, the spasm of muscles and sudden release of tension sudden and agonizing. His legs and belly cramp, and this makes the slowly healing wounds on his chest ache and throb correspondingly.

It's more painful than pleasurable, but he still enjoys it. He closes his eyes as he lays there in the aftermath, letting his hand slide away from his cock, feeling the blanket settling against the cooling smear of fluid on his belly; he knows it will stick there, and doesn't much relish the thought of the way the doctor will look at him when he has to peel that blanket back to check his wounds, but he can't really bring himself to care.

He feels himself beginning to drift away from his body again as the pain medication—programmed to flow through the IV tubing at regular intervals—enters his bloodstream. He lets his fangs retract, his trembling fingers tapping lightly against the bed as the pains his actions brought on begin to subside, washed away by the medicinal haze, the parasites and insects that had awoken inside of him gradually settling down into slumber once more.

His last thought before drug-induced stupor claims him and forces his mind into darkness once again is of the way the thing in his throat slithers farther down, settling somewhere in his chest. It's comforting to have something inside of him, pressing against his skin, wriggling through the channels and hollows of his body. Someday, he'll have something of Toriko in his body, blood and flesh and bone and—perhaps—a part of his opponent's power. The creatures he carries with him will be nourished by this, too, he's certain of that. He thinks of their needs, too, even if only because their health and strength is vital to his own.

He is never really alone.


End file.
